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Applied for OVO's smart export guarantee (SEG) - how long till it's set up?

M
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Having installed our solar panels, we applied to receive the OVO Smart energy guarantee payments and sent the requested initial export meter reading on the 12th July, which will be seven weeks ago tomorrow. 

We were told that we would receive the welcome email within four weeks from receiving this initial meter reading.

Is it normal to have to wait this long? I cannot speak to the SEG team by phone and any email sent just gets a standard reply that a response will be within 15 days.

Getting frustrated now

 

Malcolm

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Best answer by Tim_OVO 7 September 2022, 12:19

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I recently had my PV system installed and on the 20 June 2022 I filled in the online form and forwarded what I believed to be the required information to apply for SEG payments. The automated reply stating they would get back to me within 15 working days.

Having received no reply by 11 July I emailed again, only to receive the same automated reply. I tried the online chat bot but it failed to understand my question and advised me to phone. After two days of trying, I got through to customer services, I was told they would put my call through to the SEG team. After being on hold for another 10 minutes I found I had been rerouted back to customer services! This time I was told the SEG team could not be contacted by phone and that I should email them!

On 15 July I emailed OVO’s CEO (*edited by mod) to explain that I felt the customer support was not good enough. Two days later I received a phone call from a very apologetic lady, however she couldn’t do anything to help.

On the 18 July I received an email from the SEG team saying they needed some more info. On the 22 July I sent the SEG team what hopefully was all the info they required.

It is now 30 August and I’ve yet to hear anymore about my application.

Is this normal? Will I get confirmation that I’ll receive SEG payments? Is there anyway I can find out how my application is going?

Tim_OVO
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Hi @MBeaky and thanks for flagging this. Sorry to hear about that delay. 

 

I’ve taken this from our guide on the SEG:

 

You can find our application form and supporting documents guide here. Once completed you’ll need to email this (as well as the supporting documents) to our SEG team at seg@ovoenergy.com. They’ll review your application and if eligible you’ll receive a welcome email confirming the tariff and payment information within 6 weeks of applying.

 

That will be the contact email address to use to chase this up. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
Tim_OVO
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Hi @NickT - I’m so sorry to hear of the delay and the back and forth with different areas of OVO’s customer service. 

 

By the sounds of it, the team’s response times are slower than they state in the documentation and I’m sorry about that. The contact email address to use is: seg@ovoenergy.com

 

I’ll be continuing to raise this internally to make sure my colleagues are aware of these delays and as always I’ll be back if I have any updated advice to offer. 

 

I hope this gets resolved soon,
Tim

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
M
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Thank you @Tim_OVO for your reply but that really does not address the problem I have.

I successfully navigated the process of the initial application and supplied all the requested information. I then received an email saying everything was OK and all I had to do was to supply my export meter reading and I would receive contract details within 4 weeks. 

It is now 7 weeks since I sent that information and have heard nothing. I have also sent a follow up email 2 weeks ago to the address you gave and heard nothing other than a standard message received reply.

I find this very frustrating.

M
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@Tim_OVO One further frustration was that it took 27 WORKING days from my initial online application until I was accepted and received the request for the export meter reading. All this was during one of the sunniest mid summer periods ever, when we could could have benefited from the SEG payment which I calculated would have been worth £47 to me. (and, presumably, much more to OVO)

Emmanuelle_OVO
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I’m really sorry to hear that you haven’t yet had a response from our SEG team @MBeaky. You can contact our support team who will be able to help further with this. They can request a call back for you from our SEG team. 

Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
J
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In March 2022 I applied for a SEG tariff from OVO.  In early May I got confirmation from OVO that they had all the documentation they needed and was asked to I submit an initial export meter reading (submitted May 9th 2022).  I’m still waiting to get paid anything. After raising a formal complaint I got told that any payments would be back dated to the original reading date. Its virtually impossible to contact the SEG team. All I get is an automated e-mail saying they will respond within 15 working days.

How long should this take?

M
Rank

I’m in the same boat as you, with almost identical timings… meter reading submitted in May.

 

I’ve followed up 3 times since then (currently on hold for my 4th attempt).

 

Really frustrating. 

 

How do you raise a formal complaint, please??

J
Rank

Hi Mark, 

I ohined the normal customer help line and explained the situation. They didn’t really know what to do and so raised a formal complaint on my behalf. All this achieved was that I got an e-mail from the SEG team saying that they were really busy and that my payment would be back dated to my meter reading in May. It’s really frustrating. Im debating whether the next move should be to contact the energy ombudsman … or the press?

M
Rank

Hi,

 

I can put up with it so long as we do get our money backdated.

 

I got through to Customer Services yesterday and they created a ticket for the SEG team to call me. However that’s what they did when I rang before….

 

frustrating!

 

Mark

 

 

M
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I have been sent an email by OVO with links to a form to register my quarterly SEG meter readings. The link doesn’t work. Can I access the form from their website? What do I do?

Thanks

Blastoise186
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Hi @Madofthewest ,

I’m afraid if you’re only a SEG member, you won’t be able to access MyOVO as it doesn’t currently support FiT/SEG accounts.

If you’re having trouble using the link in the form, here’s two options you can try instead.

  • Try Live Chat with the Support Team and ask to use the internal form for submitting SEG readings (it gets sent to the team on your behalf). You can do that here
  • Email in your readings to seg@ovoenergy.com 

Please bear in mind the SEG team are extremely busy around this time, so it may take a while to get back to you.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
T
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Hello 

I applied for my seg account at the end of May. One document was outstanding and this was submitted on 17 July .Since then I have heard nothing and have emailed numerous times - no reply apart from the automatic reply . I’m phoned two weeks ago and advisor sent email asking seg team to call me back. No call has been made. No request for export meter reading nothing. I have so far exported 1973kwh - will this be paid or is it from starting meter reading? I would dearly love someone at Ovo to give me information and get my account up and running. 

 

 

 

T
Rank

Hello 

I applied for my seg account at the end of May. One document was outstanding and this was submitted on 17 July .Since then I have heard nothing and have emailed numerous times - no reply apart from the automatic reply . I’m phoned two weeks ago and advisor sent email asking seg team to call me back. No call has been made. No request for export meter reading nothing. I have so far exported 1973kwh - will this be paid or is it from starting meter reading? I would dearly love someone at Ovo to give me information and get my account up and running. 

Blastoise186
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Hiya!

As one of the forum volunteers, I’m unable to take actions on your account, but I can answer part of your question.

As far as I understand things, you will be paid from the starting reading once everything is up and running. It might have to wait until you’re asked to submit for the next period, but you should get back-paid for everything you export.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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Thanks for flagging this experience, @Johnf96 @Mark J - sorry to hear of the delay. 

 

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a scheme with an application form found via this SEG page here. That team at OVO have a contact email address of seg@ovoenergy.com. I am aware of longer than usual wait times. I also know that the main OVO Support team are able to pass on information to the SEG team via an internal form for things like export readings etc

 

Thanks for bearing with us all here as we deal with a spike in contact to OVO. We’re working flat out to help everyone. 

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
T
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Thanks for your reply - much appreciated 

Do you know if they will they contact me to get the starting reading or just take it from the smart meter? 
it’s just taking such a long time to get the account up and running and the lack of information from Ovo is very frustrating 

Blastoise186
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It depends. If the smart meter is configured to track exports, it may be possible to automatically grab them from there, otherwise it’ll be a manual process. The team will let you know.

They’re extremely swamped right now however, so it may take a bit longer than usual to get back to you.

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
T
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Hope to hear from them soon 🙏

thank you.

J
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Appreciate the response but ‘seg@ovoenergy.com’ is the address I’ve been e-mailing for the last few months and getting nowhere. 

N
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Well thanks Tim for your kind words, I do know the email address of the SEG team but it is pointless emailing them as they don’t reply, certainly not within 15 working days which they say they aim to do.

I think that OVO have set up this forum for the sole purpose of allowing its’ frustrated customers to be able to scream into the ether in the hope it’ll make them feel better. In my experience, it doesn’t.

It may well be that I wont miss out on any SEG payments in the long run, but I still don’t know if my application has been a success, maybe if/when I do hear from them they’ll need even more info, and when I send it I’ll receive an automatic reply saying, “we aim to reply within 15 working days”!

Can I cancel my application and try Octopus energy instead? I don’t know, perhaps I could email them………………..

juliamc
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When I first looked at this forum was full of people sharing their useful knowledge about all things electrical - those people are still around but swamped now by frustrated customers as you say screaming into the ether.

Maybe our new PM will sort out the astronomical energy prices that we’re all bracing for, then this forum, and the OVO phone lines, will return to something like normal, so that queries such as SEG payments can be dealt with.

We live in hope!

Blastoise186
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If you really want to see a forum that’s little more than a screaming hole, https://community.scottishpower.co.uk/ is a perfect example.

The OVO Forum however, has been around since 2017 and usually does help a ton of people out as @juliamc mentioned. We’re just seeing tons of members coming here because they’re not getting through on the phones due to massive call volumes.

I was actually chatting with one of OVO’s support agents about half an hour ago and told him about the forum. His reaction to it was extremely positive and he really appreciated the fact we’ve been on here all weekend helping out, even when the office has been closed. So much so, that he’s actually going to be looking deeper into the forum to pick out useful resources for his team.

It’s all in the eye of the beholder more than anything else!

Securing energy by zapping security bugs... For that is The Blastoise Way!
Tim_OVO
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Userlevel 7

Hi @TrishT thanks for updating us on this. 

 

I’ve seen multiple posts on the forum relating to a delay in setting up smart export guarantee (SEG) accounts, or long response times to emails. I’m really sorry about that. 

 

The teams are really busy at the moment. It’s September which represents a generation (if feed in tariff (FiT)) or export (if SEG) reading window, so high volumes of contact. Alongside that the price cap news is meaning all customer facing teams are very busy and response have been affected. 

 

Despite this our teams are committed to getting to your emails, applications and any outstanding payments as soon as possible. It’s still something we’re trying to put right for everyone.

 

Thanks for your patience whilst we get to everyone who needs us.

Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
T
Rank

Hi Tim 

Thanks for your reply it is much appreciated. 
I was under the impression that I would only get paid from when the starting reading is taken and as no one has been in touch to get a reading then my 2000kwh which is on my export reading so far will not be paid for because a starting reading hasn’t been taken. If this is true then even though the meter is clocking up the export amount until the account is up and running  to date £80 is lost to me. 
are you able to confirm if I have misunderstood this ? 

kind regards

Trish  

 

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